Recently in Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 Category

The awful and unnecessary Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 is creeping into force, having been partially commenced by the rubber stamping of this Order:

2009 No.58 (C.6) - Prevention And Suppression Of Terrorism - The Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 (Commencement No. 2) Order 2009

2. The following provisions of the Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 shall come into force on 16th February 2009--

[...]

(d) section 76 (offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc), together with Schedule 8 (offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc: supplementary provisions);

See Counter-Terrorism Bill clause 83 reminder - chilling effect on reporting or speculation about military or intelligence service or police personnel ?

The War on Photographers , and Military Historians and Biographers etc. intensifies, by making it a serious terrorist crime to "attempt to elicit" information e.g. name, address, photograph etc.,about a current or former member of the Police, Armed Forces or Intelligence Services.

It does not matter if there is a legal defence available to you in Court, it is too late for your liberty and career, once you have been tainted and blacklisted, by being arrested under a terrorism law, even if you are never charged or are found not guilty.

How soon before this law is used to threaten, harass and arrest political demonstrators or activists, who take photos of the Police etc. who are taking photos of them ?

Why are former members of these organisations covered, without exception i.e. including all those who have been kicked out for treason, espionage, corruption etc and those Walter Mitty fantasists or con artists, who exaggerate their former military careers, skills or experience, for vanity or to swindle people.?

How soon before this law is invoked by those in the Police, Military or Intelligence services who want to hide or cover up incompetence, corruption or worse from investigative journalists or other investigators ?

Why are other people who are just as much targets of terrorists e.g. Judges, juries, prison officers etc. not covered by this law ? If they are adequately covered by the pre-existing Terrorism Act section 58, then why is this new Terrorism Act section 58A needed at all ?

(j) the entries in Part 2 (disclosure of information and the intelligence services), Part 4 (financial restrictions proceedings), Part 5 (control orders) and Part 6 (pre-charge detention) of Schedule 9 (repeals and revocations).

See Counter-terrorism Bill - covert DNA sampling and analysis with no effective safeguards

Keep guard of your teacups, they may be stolen from you by official burglars or undercover agents, who want to secretly sample your DNA or fingerprints, if Home Office Minister Admiral Lord West's ideas on how this bit of the Act is going to be used are true.

N.B. the main sections 19 to 21 Disclosure of information to the intelligence services were commenced on Christmas Eve, 24th December 2008, so, perhaps "Santa" or his little helpers were really after your DNA and fingerprints rather than mince pies etc..

Vernon Coaker

Minister of State

Home Office

19th January 2009

Coaker joins a long list of Labour Home Office Ministers who have legislatively signed away the freedoms and liberties of the innocent majority, without any proportionate decrease in crime or terrorism.

Is there time to makes some Freedom of Information Act Requests to the Police and Military, or to take some Photographs etc, before February 16th 2009 ?

The Mail on Sunday has been delving a little into the business dealings of the controversial Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick, now in charge of the Metropolitan Police Service Counter Terrorism Command, formerly the Chief Constable of Surrey.

Given the new "thought crime" provisions brought in by the Labour government, through the recent Counter-Terrorism Act 2008, will such investigative journalism, or any further analysis by bloggers etc., which mentions current or former military, intelligence agency or police personnel, be legally possible in the future ?

The original Mail on Sunday scoop:

Security scare over wedding car hire firm run from top terror police chief's home

By Martin Delgado
Last updated at 9:35 AM on 21st December 2008

This well researched story (checking the world wide web, companies house, magazine advertisements and classic car experts etc.) originally ran on the Mail on Sunday website (updated 11.30pm 20th December) on Saturday night, illustrated with a photo from showing Judith Quick, the wife who runs the business, with one of the wedding cars. This was later censored to pixelllate out her face, and now the whole photo has been removed.

Remember to make "Save As" copies of interesting online newspaper or blog articles, instead of just adding the URLs to your web browser's Bookmarks or Favourites - they could, as in this case, be altered or censored later

Bob Quick complained to the media about the intrusion into his family life, claiming some sort of unspecified "security risk", and accusing the Conservative Party and their friends in the Press of "corruption" and " intimidation". He now seems to have retracted his use of the word "corruption".

Anti-terror chief behind arrest of MP Damian Green issues grovelling apology for Tory corruption claims

Given the information of the vintage Rolls Royce and other vehicles available for wedding hire or for other "VIP" occasions, and the approximate geographical area, published by the Mail on Sunday, it takes only a few seconds using a web search engine and online business directories to find the "search engine optimised" website, and the business address and phone number and mobile phone details.

If these represent a "security risk" to Bob Quick and his family, then perhaps the family business (not necessarily a bad thing of itself) should be running from commercial offices rather than from his home on the Surrey / Kent borders.

It cannot be pleasant having a tabloid newspaper, and the following press pack and blogosphere investigating your private life and business dealings, but such a high profile public servant, in a position of immense trust and power, in charge of the leading anti-terrorism Police unit in the UK, is paid a lot of money to shoulder such responsibility and risks, and should have "nothing to hide, nothing to fear".

A soon as Quick's statement to the press mentioned the word "corruption", a couple of obvious questions sprang to mind:

• Have any of these vehicles, driven by ex-police chauffeurs, ever been magically "let off" from speeding tickets, parking fines or congestion charges etc. ?

• Have any of these "VIP" vehicles been fitted with electronic location tracking or bugging devices, at the expense of the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command or, that of Surrey Police (Bob Quick used to be their Chief Constable) ?
  

More worryingly, we also have to ask:

Will the Metropolitan Police Counter Terrorism Command now attempt to arrest anyone who has read (or re-published) this article Mail on Sunday article, or this example of further analysis by one of our favourite bloggers Postman Patel, under the "thought crimes" sections of the vast and complicated arraty of anti-terrorism legislation ? e.g. Terrorism Act 2000 section 58 Collection of information
?

Surely any such investigative journalism by the mainstream media or by bloggers etc.,
will be further chilled, when the new Terrorism Act 2000 section 58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc, comes into force ? This was sneaked onto the statute book, without any effective scrutiny by Parliament, via to the recent Counter-Terrorism Act 2008 section 76 (currently awaiting Commencement by Order):

The House of Lords has voted to accept a minor Opposition Amendment regarding the removal of innocent people's DNA profiles, human tissue samples and fingerprints from centralised Government database, during the first part of the Report stage of the controversial Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008

See the debate and the vote: Tuesday, 4 November 2008 Counter-Terrorism Bil

The wording of the amendment:

"National guidelines on fingerprint and sample database

(1) The Secretary of State shall by regulations publish national guidelines for governmental agencies establishing--

(a) a procedure by which a person can request a statement of what information relating to fingerprints and samples is held on them or on a dependent;

(b) a procedure by which a person can request that such information held on them or a dependent is destroyed

(c) the circumstances in which a request under paragraph (b) may be refused.

(2) If a request made under paragraph (1)(b) is refused under paragraph (1)(c), the relevant agency shall write to the person setting out why such information will not be destroyed and when such circumstances as prevent it being destroyed may no longer apply.

(3) In drawing up guidelines under subsection (1), the Secretary of State shall consult such bodies as he thinks appropriate.

(4) Regulations under subsection (1) shall not be made until a draft copy is laid before, and approved by resolution of, both Houses of Parliament."

Given that there are no penalties for any bureaucrats or politicians who refuse to comply, or who deliberately delay this process, it is unlikely that any such new regulations will make any practical difference.

The Government could simply copy the existing ACPO Guidelines, which make it as hard as possible for innocent people to have their DNA profiles and samples and fingerprints, removed.

The only positive aspect of this wording "national guidelines for governmental agencies " is general enough so that it is not restricted to just the sneaky Counter-Terrorism DNA Database, run by the Metropolitan Police Service, which is what is under "clarification" in this part of the Bill, but it applies to all Government and Police DNA and fingerprint databases, including the controversial National DNA Databases.

UPDATE: 19th November 2008

The House of Commons has rejected even this minor amendment.

See the Public Whip for the detailed list of how MPs voted.

Why is the Opposition to this Labour Government so useless ?

Just a reminder that the remaining Committee stages of the dreadful Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008, being debated in the House of Lords today, still contain plenty of things which should not be allowed onto the statute book. e.g.

The Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 Clause 83 Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc.

UPDATE: this clause has now been re-numbered to be Clause 75, in the version of the Bill which goes forward to the Report stage in the House of Lords.

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11) (collection of information)

insert--

"58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who--

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been--

(i) a member of Her Majesty's forces,
(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii) a constable,

Why are all police constables covered by this ?

Why not current and former Judges, prosecutors and prison warders ?

Why are witnesses not "protected" in this way either ?

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.

(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section
to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action.

Why should you have to prove that you are innocent ? It should be the prosecution who have to prove that you are guilty.

The increasingly common "reverse burden of proof" evil, which the Home Office keeps inflicting on everyone - they really do not like the traditional "golden thread" of English justice, that of "Innocent until proven guilty, beyond reasonable doubt, on actual evidence", do they ?

Surely this will have a chilling effect on journalists , bloggers and biography writers etc. ?

Will the study of military history be illegal ?

All the senior members of the Royal Family are current or former military officers. Will the vast publishing and media industry which surrounds them now be deemed to be illegal ?

It is likely that this law will be used by petty jobsworths, to try to harass anyone who takes a photograph of any military , or police personnel.

Since it also covers former members of the armed forces, surely this will chill any reporting of, or even the organisation of, Remembrance Sunday / Poppy Appeal memorial parades and events etc ?

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable--

(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine, or to both;

(b) on summary conviction--

(i) in England and Wales or Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;

(ii) in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.

(4) In this section "the intelligence services" means the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (within the meaning of section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (c. 13)).

[...]"

Why is any of this necessary given the "thought crime" over broadness of the existing Terrorism Act 2000 section 58, which has been used to convict Abu Bakr Mansha to 6 years in prison, for the possession of a single, out of date address of a serving British soldier ?

Given the hundreds of thousands of military names, addresses and other personal details which have been lost or stolen recently, what use is this clause 83 in practice ?

See the previous Spy Blog article: Counter-Terrorism Bill Clause 83 - chilling effect on reporting or speculation about military or intelligence service or police personnel ?

Media reports about the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008, currently being debated in the House of Lords, seem to be focussed exclusively on the 42 days internment without charge issue, which may or may not be dropped by the obstinate, unelected, Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

The Labour Home Office Minister, former naval Admiral, and military intelligence chief, Lord West of Spithead, attempted to defend the indefensible:

9 Oct 2008 : Column 350

Lord West of Spithead (Labour)

[...]

We have to be careful that we do not move towards a Big Brother-type society. I know that the Committee is conscious of that; I certainly am when I am sitting at my desk in the Home Office looking at these issues.

The Orwellian doublethink of this Labour Government, and of their security bureaucrats, apparatchiki and political commissars is always evident when they shy away from the accusation of creating a Big Brother surveillance society, whilst simultaneously plunging ahead with creating exactly the omnipresent surveillance and snooping infrastructure which forms the foundation of such a society.

According to the novel, doublethink is:

The power of holding two contradictory beliefs in one's mind simultaneously, and accepting both of them....To tell deliberate lies while genuinely believing in them, to forget any fact that has become inconvenient, and then, when it becomes necessary again, to draw it back from oblivion for just so long as it is needed, to deny the existence of objective reality and all the while to take account of the reality which one denies -- all this is indispensably necessary.

Lord West then went on to use a weasel worded bait and switch justification, that the proposed Clause 19 Disclosure and the intelligence services powers, regarding DNA samples and analyses and databases, used for Counter Terrorism, which are currently not "on a firm legal footing" i.e. are actually illegal, should be made legal, to allow DNA checks and sharing with foreign intelligence agencies DNA samples e.g. those found at "terrorist training camps".

The "bait and switch" is that this Counter-terrorism Bill grants powers under Clause 18 Material not subject to existing statutory restrictions which are not strictly limited to terrorism investigations, but are generally applicable all crime, no matter how petty.

18 Material not subject to existing statutory restrictions

[...]

2 (b) for purposes related to the prevention or detection of crime, the
investigation of an offence or the conduct of a prosecution, or

[...]

Lord West went on to say:

Lords Hansard 9 Oct 2008 : Column 396

The Daily Mail and the Daily Telegraph are, somewhat belatedly, gleefully reporting the "outing" of a military fantasist by habituées of he British Army Rumour Service website, which happened a couple of months back back in April, - see their ARSSEpedia wiki page on Jim McAuley

See

• Daily Mail - Soldier quits after Facebook claims of serving with SAS and killing 100 people are exposed as lies

• Daily Telegraph - SAS Facebook fantasist quits over lies

There always have been such military fantasists, some who have never been in the military atl, and some who, like Jim McAuley exaggerate their military career. ARSSE even has a tongue in cheek wiki page "bluffers guide" which helps others to detect them or, which might help potential fantasists to spin a more convincing yarn - Walting With Confidence ("walt" as in Walter Mitty)

Jim McAuley has resigned from his current military job as a cadet force instructor, and made an apology.

A fantasist has been caught making a fool of himself in public, and has apologised. All well and good.

So why is this story rather troubling to Spy Blog ?

These two mainstream media publications have lifted text and pictures without attribution and without linking to the online URLs .of the sources for this story. What does that say about the standards and ethics of professional "investigative" journalists, compared with bloggers ?

The Daily Telegraph have also, to their utter discredit, published Jim McAuley's full home address.

Exactly what crime did Jim McAuley commit ? None.

What harm did he do, to anyone or anything but his own reputation ? None.

Where is the overwhelming public interest in publishing his home address ? None.

Being an Army Cadet Force instructor may be a minor, low level military job, but that still made him a current "member of Her Majesty's forces". Nobody disputes that he did actually serve as a member of the Army Catering Corp.

One of the Clauses of the Counter-Terrorism Bill currently going through Parliament, and which has been over shadowed by the "42 days" furore, is Clause 83:

83 Offences relating to information about members of armed forces etc

(1) After section 58 of the Terrorism Act 2000 (c. 11) (collection of information)

insert--

"58A Eliciting, publishing or communicating information about members of armed forces etc

(1) A person commits an offence who--

(a) elicits or attempts to elicit information about an individual who is or has been--

(i) a member of Her Majesty's forces,
(ii) a member of any of the intelligence services, or
(iii) a constable,

which is of a kind likely to be useful to a person committing or preparing an act of terrorism, or

(b) publishes or communicates any such information.

(2) It is a defence for a person charged with an offence under this section
to prove that they had a reasonable excuse for their action.

(3) A person guilty of an offence under this section is liable--

(a) on conviction on indictment, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 10 years or to a fine, or to both;

(b) on summary conviction--

(i) in England and Wales or Scotland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 12 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both;

(ii) in Northern Ireland, to imprisonment for a term not exceeding 6 months or to a fine not exceeding the statutory maximum, or to both.

(4) In this section "the intelligence services" means the Security Service, the Secret Intelligence Service and GCHQ (within the meaning of section 3 of the Intelligence Services Act 1994 (c. 13)).

[...]"

Remember that even if you are not charged or convicted under this section, but simply arrested, you will suffer the humiliation of being fingerprinted and DNA sampled and will be tagged as a "suspected terrorist" for the rest of your life, on "intelligence databases" which will be secretly shared with foreign governments, without the full context of the incident being recorded.

Even if you have a "reasonable excuse" defence under subsection (2), that is too late, it only applies once you are facing prosecution in court, it will not prevent you from being arrested in the first place.

There are some Obvious Questions about this Clause 83:

1. What is the justification for a 10 year prison sentence, just for information about current or former military personnel, intelligence service personnel or police constables, when the existing Terrorism Section 58 already has a penalty of up to 7 years in prison for "any" information ?

2. Is this proposed legislation a tacit admission by the Home Office, that the conviction of the mentally sub-normal mentally sub-normal Abu Baker Mansha , who was given 6years in prison for possession of the name and a partial (out of date) address of a serving war hero, scribbled on a copy of The Sun newspaper, was, perhaps, not legally sound ?

3. How many thousands of years in prison, do those people who individually and collectively contributed to the loss of the unencrypted military recruitment database, on a stolen laptop computer, which put the names and addresses of over 1 million people, including hundreds of thousands of military recruits and their families, at risk ? - see the Spy Blog category archive - MoD security and privacy breach

4. The Daily Telegraph was obviously wrong to publish Jim McAuley's home address in the story above, but should the newspaper staff really be facing 10 years in prison and / or an unlimited fine for doing so ?

5. Should the British Army Rumour Service bloggers and discussion forum members etc. really also be facing facing 10 years in prison and / or an unlimited fine ?

6. Clause 83 makes no legal distinction between a current member of the SAS or other Special Forces, or of members of the Royal Family (several of whom are former or current military officers) and a former member of the Army Catering Corps - why are they are all covered equally ?

7. Will this clause be abused by jobsworths, who will then try to restrict photography in public places of any Police constables or military personnel ?

   N.B. Police Community Support Officers are not sworn Police Constables.

8. Will this clause have an unintended effect on voluntary organisations and charities, which help to look after former military people e.g. the Royal British Legion etc. ? Will the act of compiling membership lists, or taking group photographs of "old comrades" commemorations now be chilled ?

9. Will there be a chilling effect on the authorship and publication of military history and memoirs ?

10. Will there be a chilling effect on specialist publications like, say, Eye Spy Magazine, or the mainstream media in general ?

11. Could this clause be used, perhaps in the future, to help to suppress any criticism of the military, intelligence agencies or the Police, by bloggers ?

There is no need for this Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 Clause 83, and it should be dropped from the Bill.

Ideally the whole of the Terrorism Act 2000 Section 58 should be repealed, we should not be prosecuting people for "Thought Crimes" or for scientific or engineering knowledge, but only for actual possession of weapons, explosives, firearms or money etc. with a clear terrorist intent. At the very least, there should be a Statutory Code of Practice which clearly prevents Section 58t from being used to legally threaten or harass photographers, journalists, bloggers, historians, or biographers who write about military or intelligence or police matters, or anybody with relevant scientific or engineering training and knowledge.

We wondered if Baroness Mannigham-Buller would comment on the Counter-Terrorism Bill, and she has done so in her maiden speech to the House of Lords.

Sitting on the Cross Benches, she has come out against the Government's plans, as have former New Labour Chancellor Lord Falconer, former New Labour Attorney general Lord Goldsmith

Baroness Helen Kennedy, a Labour human rights barrister, and Lord Condon, former Metropolitan Police Commissioner have also spoken against the extension to 442 days of holding people without charge.

The Labour member of the intelligence and Security Committee, the Rt. Hon. Lord Foulkes of Cumnock managed to bring up Andy Burnham, praising his controversial comments against David Davis and even mentioning Shami Chakrabarti's threat to sue Burnham, in his blustering support of the Government.

We may be wrong, but it certainly looked as if someone bearing a resemblance to Shami Chakrabarti was actually sitting in the visitor's gallery in the Chamber of the Lords whilst he said this.

Baroness Mannigham-Buller's speech:

[Hat tip to Lord Norton, writing at the new House of Lords group blog Lords of the Blog]:

Adding value

Published July 1, 2008 Lord Norton

What have the Rt Rev. John Charles, Bishop of Lincoln, and Eliza Manningham-Buller, former head of MI5, got in common?

Answer: They were both introduced into the House of Lords today. The Bishop joins the House by reason of seniority, replacing a retiring Bishop. Baroness Manningham-Buller is, as far as I am aware, the first former head of MI5 to be elevated to the peerage. She is not, though, the first member of the security service to become a peer.

[...]

Hansard says:

Introduction: Baroness Manningham-Buller

Baroness Manningham-Buller--Dame Elizabeth Lydia Manningham-Buller, DBE, having been created Baroness Manningham-Buller, of Northampton in the County of Northamptonshire, for life, was introduced between the Lord Inge and the Lord Luce.

Wikipedia entry for Baroness Manningham-Buller

It will be interesting to see if this former Director General of the Security Service MI5 speaks or votes in the forthcoming stages of the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 which will debated in the House of Lords. - the Second Reading is due next week on Tuesday 8th July 2008.

The Home Office has published: The Government Reply to the Report by Lord Carlile of Berriew Q.C (.pdf) on his Report on the Operation of the Terrorism Act 2000 and Part 1 of the Terrorism Act 2006.(.pdf)

This Reply contains what we have come to expect from the Government - they seem to think that rolling out even more complicated, repressive legislation (e.g. the 42 days malarkey) and even more privacy destroying data sharing. of, in this case, international and domestic airline or ferry or rail tunnel passenger and freight information, is somehow an effective anti-terrorism policy.

The Government seem to have shuffled the deckchairs and budgets around a bit, with regard to Lord Carlile's previous concerns regarding the lack of permanent Special Branch officers and offices at Ports, and regarding the growing threat of General Aviation (private corporate aeroplanes at private airfields)

Incredibly, there is also some details of further bureaucratic bungling over the supposedly strictly time and location limited, temporary Requests and Authorisations, for the extraordinary Terrorism Act 2000 section 44 stop and search without reasonable suspicion powers.

See our current, outstanding Freedom of Information Act request (currently in the Complaints queue at the Information Commissioner's Office) - HO Terrorism Act 2000 s44 Authorisations

It appears that 3 Police Forces, the dedicated Metropolitan Police National Joint Unit which specialises in terrorism legislation authorisations, the Home Office, and the Home Secretary, all find it too difficult to use a calendar to count up to the clearly laid down 28 days statutory limit correctly.

One of the sections which caught our attention on first reading the text of the Counter-Terrorism Bill 2008 was what appeared to be a retrospective carte blanche, to cover up any past misdeeds of the intelligence agencies, with regard to the handling of confidential disclosures from people who have a duty of confidence e.g. lawyers, accountants, medical doctors, financial institutions, commercial companies etc.

Clause 20 subsection 4

20 Disclosure and the intelligence services: supplementary provisions

[...]

(4) Nothing in that section shall be read as casting doubt on the legality of anything done by any of the intelligence services before that section came into force.

[...]

As we pointed out before, the effect of this wording is precisely the opposite of , presumably, the Government intended. Given the lack of public trust trust in this Labour Government , and the excessive secrecy which the intelligence agencies appear to use to hide their failures, most people reading it will think "no smoke without fire".

This sub-clause was unconvincingly defended by Home Ofice Minister Tony McNulty during the Committee stage debate: see Counter-Terrorism Bill - Commons Committee debate 6th May 2008 - Columns 236 - 240

As predicted, yesterday's Report stage "debate" in the Commons was heavily programmed or guillotined, and, there was no debate or explanation for this utterly obscurely worded Government amendment which had sneaked onto the order papers.

Clause 20 Disclosure And The Intelligence Services: Supplementary Provisions

Amendment made: No. 55, page 15, line 33, leave out subsection (4).--[Mr. McNulty.]

This, together with a wodge of other amendments went through on the nod, without a vote.

The offending Clause 20 sub-clause (4) has gone - so what changed between the 6th May and the 10th June to remove it ?

There may have been a perfectly sensible and reasonable re-evaluation of the Government's aggressive stance on this issue, but, since they have not deigned to bother to explain in public, they deserve no credit for democratic openness and transparency.

During the Committee stage mentioned above, Tony McNulty claimed that

[...]

That is all that clauses 19 to 21 do. They mirror sections 33 to 35 of the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act. Our concern is that the absence of similar explicit protections for the intelligence and security agencies may cause doubt in the minds of those wishing to give information that it is safe to do so. Given the vital work of the intelligence and security agencies it is important that nothing should dissuade those wishing to protect our society by giving information to the agencies, so that the agencies can carry out their vital statutory functions. It is important that nothing gets in the way of that, and that is why those clauses are offered.

[...]

This is nonsense !